FilmON Festival – design for inclusion

Challenge

We took on the full responsibility for bringing the creative idea for the festival’s visual identity and implementing it. The identity was to be mature, fresh and strongly festival-oriented. In addition, we had to adapt it to a diverse audience, both schoolchildren and adults.

Scope of the project consisted of:

• conception and implementation of visual identity,
• finding gadgets ideas, contact with subcontractors, and negotiations,
• production of marketing materials and gadgets: roll-up, badges, backpacks, animations, vouchers, diplomas, bracelets, leaflets, invitations, lanyards, statues, festival posters, and social media graphics
• updating and creating the festival website

Solution

We started our work on the concept with some deep yet enjoyable considerations; after all, we are cinema enthusiasts ourselves. We thought about what we could find in a film. What can we experience as viewers? And what ideas can we present through our own short movie? For FilmON’s new identity, we chose elements, in our opinion, the most relevant:

• Challenges
• Magic
• Feelings
• Adventure
• Community
• Nature

Then, we looked at FilmON’s festival logo and decided to develop each letter to create distinctive shapes filled with textures, colours and patterns. Each shape corresponded to one of the previously selected elements. This became the starting point, the canvas on which we weaved the story of the FilmON festival this year.

Posters informing about key dates related to participation in the festival. We designed six different variants of this graphic.

As a company that, both internally and externally, builds standards in inclusive communication, we also took care to change the festival’s slogan:

Film festival for disabled people –> Film festival for people with disabilities.

In line with the visual concept, we updated the materials on the festival website, which, by the way, is also designed by us. For previous editions, we created the site layout and information architecture. We then optimised it for user experience and accessibility. The result is a site that can be easily navigated by people with visual impairments and difficulty focusing. Admind was also responsible for maintaining the site and adding new articles, photos, and graphics.

As FilmON actively communicates with its audience through social media, especially Instagram. We spent a lot of time on this medium creating designs and animations that present the new edition of the festival, inform and encourage participation, and those to be used at a later stage of the festival. Among others, informing about the winners and presenting jury.

The promotion of the film festival could not be complete without footage. We prepared a trailer and used it on the website, social media, and during the festival.

At the same time, we prepared professional festival gadgets for the participants. Our goal was to make them consistent with the visual environment of FilmON.

Outcome

Throughout the whole project, cooperation and communication went very smoothly thanks to the organisers’ commitment and openness to our designers’ ideas. We all wanted FilmON to look professional, to compete with other festivals in this aspect and, above all, to attract the audience’s attention. And we achieved this – statistics don’t lie:

• in 2022, participants submitted 47 films to the competition (a record number). This compares with only 2 in 2016 and 17 in 2018.
• the reach of the fanpage was 18,478 people, an increase of 23.1% from the previous year.
• 5604 visitors to the YouTube channel.